2 Elena

My first unfinished love was called Elena.

I wasn’t more than six. Back on those days, my nose used to bleed in a way that was more difficult to hide and more prone to be revealed. I never wanted to be one of those kids that played around with two big balls of toilet paper poking out their nostrils. I thought they were ridiculous. Their lack of self-control was unmasked by two white-becoming-red signals in the middle of the face. Specifically, one of those kids was called Alado. Alado was supposed to be my friend in certain specific situations. But let’s not rush things, we will come back to him.

Concerning my circulatory system, I acted it smarter (or that is what I thought). I learned how to be more discrete, more subtle. I used to clog my capillary with a couple of small paper balls deep inside my nose, so they couldn’t be seen from outside. It was me the only one that knew they were there, stopping the hemorrhage while I could benefit from a standard social life and my private sensorial pleasures. I thought I had it everything. I was forced to breathe through my mouth, though. That might be one reason why I developed asthma.

Nowadays, my multifunctional dark blue turban from Morocco helps me to avoid shameful moments. Blood remains pretty undetected on the color of the cloth. On my third year of university, it saved my life. I was doing the exam on the subject that I liked the least of the whole degree. The lack of preparation triggered my autonomous system, and the nervousness made me behave too impulsively and aggressively against my nasal vestibule. Before reaching the third question, I started bleeding uncontrollably. I didn’t want to screw up the exam, neither my social reputation (if I had any). There was no acceptable excuse to go to the toilet in the middle of the test and come back 8 minutes later. The teacher would think I wanted to copy. There was no way out. Luckily, I had the turban on my neck. I put it over my nose and pretended that I had a strong cold and I was absorbing my falling mucous. I kept swallowing my bloody saliva until I finished the exam. By the time I arrived at the toilets, the hemorrhage had already stopped. That day, I got the worst mark of the degree.

Elena never fully realized that I existed. Nevertheless, I got nervous and tense when commercials of soap for the washing machine were screened on the TV. As you could have guessed, the brand’s name was “Elena”. My parents were there, on the living room, seated next to me, while my whole body was reacting to a wash machine soap with the name of my secret lover. I could blame them for how tense I became during the film’s romantic scenes, but it could be impossible to make them responsible for my physiological reactions to cleaning products.

For you, my lovers and readers, that got this far, what my beliefs were and who you are, that is the purpose of being here, all of us.